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Notes on Euthydemus 2011 Carrie Elizabeth Swanson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SOCRATIC DIALECTIC AND THE RESOLUTION OF FALLACY IN PLATO‟S EUTHYDEMUS by CARRIE ELIZABETH SWANSON A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy written under the direction of Alan Code and Robert Bolton and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION SOCRATIC DIALECTIC AND THE RESOLUTION OF FALLACY IN PLATO‟S EUTHYDEMUS By CARRIE ELIZABETH SWANSON Dissertation Co-Directors: Alan Code and Robert Bolton My dissertation is devoted to an examination of the resolution of fallacy in Plato's Euthydemus. I argue that the Socratic response to fallacious reasoning is conducted at two different levels of philosophical sophistication. Socrates relies upon the resources of Socratic dialectic in responding to sophisms due to ignorance of refutation. Insofar as Socratic dialectic is grounded in a grasp of the nature of genuine refutation, the objections it raises to false refutation are fully explanatory. On the other hand, Socrates employs various self-refutation arguments against theses which depend on false assumptions regarding the nature of predication. While this method of examination cannot explain why the sophists‟ theses are false, these limitations on Socratic expertise are overcome in other passages in the dialogue which are replete with clues to the reader that point to a genuine explanation and resolution of the sophists‟ arguments for their various theses. Here Plato implicitly relies on the results of what I call higher dialectic. I conclude that the Euthydemus is concerned to identify Socratic dialectic as only a part of philosophy---thus anticipating the Sophist’s conception of Socrates as the practitioner of a „noble sophistry‟, (gennai&a sofistikh&, 231b3-8) and the elenchus as a propaedeutic to philosophy, which purges the soul of false beliefs. ii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One 15 1.1 Between Philosophy and Politics 15 1.2 Good Arts and Bad Arts 27 1.3 Between Good Arts and Bad 37 1.4 Winners and Losers 45 Chapter Two 54 2.1 The First Protreptic Episode 54 2.2 The Second Protreptic Episode: Producers and Users 61 2.3 Into the Labyrinth 64 2.4 The Aporia Resolved 75 Chapter Three 82 3.1 Socratic Dialectic 82 3.2 The First Eristic Episode: Learning about „Correctness in Names‟ 94 3.3 The Second Eristic Episode: the Impossibility of False Speaking 112 3.4 An Antisthenian Interlude 132 3.5 The Impossibility of Contradiction 144 3.6 The Socratic response: Self-Refutation Arguments 149 3.7 The Socratic Art of Refutation: an Initial Characterization 174 Chapter Four 4.1 The Final Eristic Episode: Plato on Secundum Quid and Ignoratio Elenchi 180 4.2 The Omniscience Argument 183 4.3 Plato and Aristotle on the Solution of Secundum Quid 193 4.4 The Always Omniscient Argument 203 4.5 Plato and Aristotle on the Fallacy of Ignoratio Elenchi 211 4.6 Socratic Dialectic and the Production of Paradox 235 4.7 Secundum Quid in the Sophist 239 4.8 Taking Stock 247 iii Chapter Five 254 5.1 Plato on the Distinctness of Secundum Quid, Homonymy, and Accident 254 5.2 The Other Than F → Not-F Argument 256 5.3 The Dog Fallacy 265 5.4 Plato‟s Examination of the Dog Fallacy 283 5.5 Medicine and Monsters 285 5.6 The Gold Fallacy 291 5.7 Aristotle Against the Double Signification of the Genitive Case 297 5.8 The God Fallacy 301 5.9 Amphiboly and Many Questions in the Euthydemus 314 5.10 Socrates‟ Iolaus and the Taxonomy of Fallacy 322 Chapter Six 325 6.1 Socratic Dialectic and the Causal Explanation of Fallacy 325 6.2 Dionysodorus‟ Ox: Other Than F → Not-F Redux 333 6.3 The Final Self-Refutation Argument 365 Conclusion 373 Bibliography 375 Curriculum Vitae 381 iv 1 Introduction The Euthydemus is certainly the funniest dialogue in the Platonic corpus. It is also one of the strangest. What exactly is the joke and what is the nature of this comedy? If it is a parody, what does it satirize? If its sole purpose is to amuse, why would Plato implicate that unfunniest of gods in such a farce? As Socrates explains to Crito, the whole riot began when the god ordered Socrates to engage the sophists Euthydemus and Dionysodorus in conversation: As good luck would have it, I was sitting by myself in the undressing-room just where you [Crito] saw me and I was already thinking of leaving. But when I got up, my customary divine sign (to\ ei0wqo\j shmei=on to^ daimo&nion) put in an appearance. So I sat down again, and in a moment the two of them, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, came in… (272e1-273a2)1 Apollo‟s divine intervention, combined with the brothers‟ subsequent claims to wisdom (at 273d8-9, 274a5, and 274a10-b1), rouses our expectation that despite all the horseplay, the dialogue‟s underlying purpose is as serious as any elenctic encounter dramatized in the earlier Socratic dialogues: surely the soldier of Apollo will disabuse the pretenders to virtue of their conceit? This seriousness of purpose is underscored by Socrates himself in his initial challenge to the sophists: Put off the rest of your display to another time and give a demonstration of this one thing: persuade this young man here [i.e., Cleinias] that he ought to love wisdom and have a care for virtue (pei&saton w9j xrh\ filosofei=n kai\ a0reth=j e0pimelei=sqai), and you will oblige both me and all the present company. The boy‟s situation is this: both I and all these people want him to become as good as possible…He is young, and we are anxious about him, as one naturally is about a boy of his age, for fear that somebody might get in ahead of us and turn his mind to some other interest and ruin him (e0p a@llo ti e0pith&deuma tre&yaj au0tou= th&n dia&noian kai& diafqei&rh|). If you have no objection, make trial of the boy (pei=ran tou= meiraki&ou) and converse with him in our presence. (275a4-275b6) 1 Unless otherwise indicated, translation of the Euthydemus is from Sprague (1993) with modifications. 2 There is scarcely any task more serious than the protreptic task of exhorting the young to the care of the soul. It is noteworthy then that Plato makes Socrates insist from the start that the silliness (and the sadism) of the sophists is therefore not funny under the circumstances: These things are the frivolous part of study (which is why I also tell you that the men are jesting); and I call these things “frivolity” (padia^n) because even if a man were to learn many or even all such things, he would be none the wiser as to how matters stand but would only be able to make fun of people, tripping them up and overturning them by means of distinctions in words, just like people who pull the chair out from under a man who is going to sit down and then laugh gleefully when they see him sprawling on his back…They said they would give a demonstration of hortatory skill (protreptikh^n sofia&n), but now it seems to me that they have thought it necessary to make fun of you before beginning. So, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, put an end to this joking; I think we have had enough of it. (278b2-278d1) Neither is anyone to laugh at Socrates‟ protreptic counter-demonstration: The next thing to do is to give an exhibition of persuading the young man that he ought to devote himself to wisdom and virtue (e0pidei&caton protre&ponte to\ meira&kion o$pwj xrh\ sofi&aj te kai\ a0reth=j e0pimelhqh=nai). But first I shall give you two a demonstration of the way in which I conceive the undertaking and of the sort of thing I want to hear. And if I seem to you to be doing this in an unprofessional and ridiculous way, don‟t laugh at me (i0diwtikw=j te kai\ geloi&wj au0to\ poiei=n, mh& mou katagela=te)---it is out of a desire to hear your wisdom that I have the audacity to improvise in front of you. Therefore, you and your disciples restrain yourselves and listen without laughing… (278d1-278e2) We are led to expect therefore that the dialogue has a serious moral purpose. We are also led to expect that this purpose is two-fold: somewhere in the eristic scenes, the sophists will be refuted; in the protreptic scenes, Cleinias will be persuaded to devote himself to philosophy. On both counts, however, our expectations seem to be dashed. Socrates‟ encounters with the sophists seem more designed as a comic demonstration that they are incorrigible candidates for elenctic refutation, irredeemable by the elenctic art. And while the first protreptic scene ends on a promising note… Now then, since you [Cleinias] believe both that [wisdom] can be taught and that it is the only existing thing which makes a man happy and fortunate, surely you would agree that it is necessary to love wisdom and you mean to do this yourself (a0nangkai=on ei0=nai filosofei=n). 3 This is just what I mean to do, Socrates, as well as ever I can! (282c8-282d3) …Socrates‟ second protreptic speech (288d5-292e7) ends in aporia; worse still, the very respondent to whom his speech is addressed is mysteriously supplanted at a critical juncture, his answers impersonated by a „superior being‟—thinly disguised as Socrates himself: What do you mean, Socrates? Did that boy utter all this? You‟re not convinced of it, Crito? Good heavens, no! Because, in my opinion, if he spoke like that, he needs no education (paidei&an), either from Euthydemus or anyone else.
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